IonOtter writes: Ars Technica tells us that the Iranian government is reportedly blocking access to websites that use the HTTPS security protocol, and preventing the use of software residents use to bypass the state-run firewall.
From post on Hacker News today, apparently written by an Iranian resident:

Since Thursday Iranian government has shutted [sic] down the https protocol which has caused almost all google services (gmail, and google.com itself) to become inaccessible. Almost all websites that reply on Google APIs (like wolfram alpha) won't work. Accessing to any website that replies on https (just imaging how many websites use this protocol, from Arch Wiki to bank websites). Also accessing many proxies is also impossible.

Several Hacker News users confirmed the original post's statement that Iran is blocking encrypted Internet traffic. "I live in Iran. The fact about the shut down is correct," one person wrote. Another said "They drop all encrypted connections. This means no https, no IMAP over TLS and no SSH connections. (Im in Iran).